A Tented Peace

In 'A Tented Peace', her moving and coherent second collection, Kathleen McPhilemy sustains her view of the poet as witness. Even in her domestic poems, dealing with house, garden, the passing of the seasons, she is aware she inhabits 'a tented peace' in a world of violence and turmoil. Her work is open to public issues and events, whether in Northern Ireland, Europe or further afield. She moves between the political and the personal so that each informs the other, returning always to the twin themes of accountability and communication, which for her, in all their difficulty, are at the heart of poetry.